The Socialist 15 March 2007

£billions for rich... Pennies for us!

Minimum wage insult

UNISON Health group votes for summer demo

Hewitt's 'day of exchange'

Fighting the cuts in Camden

Lambeth council attacks services for vulnerable people

Barking BNP don't oppose council cuts

Lewisham council's outrageous attack

Kurdish asylum seekers living in fear

Northern Ireland Assembly elections: Another sectarian headcount...

We Won't Pay Campaign conference success

Solidarity builds party profile ahead of elections

February revolution 1917 - what lessons for today?

US continues threats over Iran's nuclear ambitions

Iraq war: Convicted Bush official is 'fall guy' over WMD scandal

Celebrating International Women's Day

Tenants vote no to council housing sell-off

Market-driven 'social housing' threatens tenants

Will government plans stop climate change?

Build the campaign to defeat fees

International Socialist Resistance (ISR) and Socialist Students conference

Trade Unions and the Labour Party: CWU branch asks some awkward questions

Campaign for a New Workers' Party conference

Reinstate Dave Condliffe now

UNISON leaders lead members into dead end

SOUTHAMPTON council strike

PCS prepares for more struggles

Right wins lecturers' union leadership - on a 14% turnout

Previous issues, etc

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Hewitt's 'day of exchange'

WATCHED BY local BBC and ITN camera crews, UNISON and RCN stewards/reps from across the East Midlands protested outside Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt's surgery on 3 March.

Six selected people went inside Hewitt's surgery where the minister reiterated all the 'positive points' (from her viewpoint) in the NHS. She didn't put forward anything new to address all the problems of cuts, privatisation etc. The UNISON branch secretary from a Leicester hospital pressed Hewitt on the cuts in the city's hospitals.

She challenged Hewitt: "I bet you, if you did my medical records work in my hospital for a week you will be more stressed at the end of the week, than if I did yours as Secretary of State for Health for a week." The result, picked up by the local media, was that Patricia Hewitt agreed to a day's exchange with the branch secretary!